Political climate

The political climate is the aggregate mood and opinions of a political society at a particular time. It is generally used to describe when the state of mood and opinion is changing or unstable. The phrase has origins from both ancient Greece and medieval-era France.

While the concept of a political climate has been used historically to describe both politics and public reactions to political actions in various forms, the naming of the concept by the addition of the modifier "political" to the base "climate" has been fairly recent. Public opinion is also widely used incorrectly as a synonym for political climate.

As for judging what the climate is at any given time, there is no way to know an entire country's views on certain subjects. So, polls are used to estimate what the political climate "feels" like on a regular basis.